


Tough To Be An Artist

by crocodilepatronus



Category: Wayland's Song
Genre: Character Study, Dubious Consent, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 07:15:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocodilepatronus/pseuds/crocodilepatronus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a character study and background story for John from Wayland's Song. MAJOR FILM SPOILERS. READ WARNINGS IN THE AUTHOR'S NOTES AT THE BEGINNING.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tough To Be An Artist

**Author's Note:**

> so yes the movie hasn't come out yet but I've read the script, came up with some headcanons, and this fic kind of just emerged. Foot in the door to be the first person to write a fic for Wayland's Song.  
> This fic is John's backstory up to the moment we see in the trailer where he has a gun pressed to his head. It does not go beyond that point. However it reveals a lot of things about the plot of the movie so do not continue unless you're prepared to be spoiled. 
> 
> ADDITIONAL WARNINGS FOR THIS FIC: drug use, alcohol abuse, violence, swearing, sort of dubcon, vomit (not described explicitly) , mentions of noncon/dubcon

John knew his art was shit.

After a few too many drinks he would admit to that openly and probably go on to tell anybody who’d listen how art in general was a load of bollocks.

However, after snorting a few lines of coke, John thought he was the next Picasso.

“I’m a fucking genius.” he’d said one night, covered in paint, staring at his spattered canvas. A sort of post-coital inspiration had struck him at 4 a.m and he’d abandoned the bleached blonde bombshell (one of many whose names he could never remember) in his sheets to drag a canvas and paint back into the bedroom where he’d ignored her to work furiously for an hour with five different colors and three different brushes until he was satisfied.

“It’s like I’m a savant.” he’d said in awe, shaking his head in disbelief as he stared wide-eyed at his own work.

The blonde looked at his painting and said irreverently: “John, we’re out of beer.”

He’d proceeded to fingerpaint her breasts, have one more weak orgasm, and pass out. The next morning (afternoon technically) he’d woken up sans the blonde in a bed with paint stained sheets and looked at the canvas he’d worshipped the night before with disgust. There was no subject, no theme, no elegance- it was literally just chaotic brush strokes of neon colors.

“Looks like Rainbow Brite’s vomit.” he muttered to himself as he folded it into a manageable size to stuff it in the waste bin along with a week’s worth of takeout Thai food, used condoms, and empty cigarette cartons.

John hadn’t started out caring about art at all- but he’d wanted to be an **_artist_**. He was one of many people on earth who wasn’t particularly good at anything. In highschool he’d discovered the wonders of drugs and lost what little motivation he’d ever had for school, barely graduating. The idea of doing actual “work” had always been abhorrent to John. He was the only child in an overly rich family and despite his father’s speeches about being a self-made man and the value of a hard day’s work, John had never been denied anything. He’d gone to a liberal arts college where high quality narcotics were never in short supply and enrolled in a few art classes thinking they’d be easy. At first he’d been skeptical of all the blurry paintings of flowers and marble statues of naked men looking contemplative but he soon fell in with an “artistic” crowd. After many a night sitting around with them, playing classical music so loud it nearly busted their speakers, eating buttons of peyote, and **_then_** hearing them talk about how the dark shadow in their paintings were symbolic of the bourgeois and how psychadelic drugs were the key to opening his artistic mind, he was convinced.

Eventually he stopped going to class at all in favor of pursuing “true” art in the form of getting high with whatever he could get his hands on and he dropped out of college before receiving a degree.

His father was dissapointed with him in the extreme (more for being an artist than for being a drug addict) but had still given him enough money to buy an abandoned factory for his studio in the city. At first he’d had an allowance. Then he’d been cut off after it became evident that he had no interest in working a day in his life and was perfectly content to sap money off his father in large amounts. That had been hard.

He tried to sell his art but it was never enough money. Barely enough to pay the rent.

What he needed was a way to make money in large amounts without having to really work and the obvious option was to start selling drugs.

He started to spend a lot of time at clubs and bars like Tony’s (veritable Hotel Californias- junkies show up and never leave type places). The sort of people he hung around with changed- from laid back hippie artist types to real, hardcore, drug dealers. That’s the only place the money was to be made. And of course he couldn’t sell the stuff without sampling it as well.

That’s when he started branching out from psychadelic drugs to harder stuff. He tried heroin a few times but even though he was reckless he was an anxious person by nature and didn’t like the look of the heroin addicts he saw around his neighborhood.

He found his drug of choice to be cocaine. He liked the way it made him feel but more specifically he liked the way it made him feel about himself. On coke he felt like he could be anyone, do anything, and that everything he said and did was fucking brilliant. On coke he did more art than ever, even if it didn’t always look as good in the morning, sometimes it was alright. And once he started dealing the drugs his studio became a social hub. Maybe not for the sort of people he’d initially expected to spend all his time with but there were plenty of good looking girls that would come in and out and now that he had money he could buy things he liked- nice wine, even some nice clothes…

What he hadn’t fucking wanted was for it to start being a hub for other messed up shit. Real Wild West bullshit. Crooked cops and whores and guns. Like- what the fuck did they think this was?

Really, it had all gone downhill when he’d started trying to do business with Grace. She opened him up to a whole new world of sick. One night she came to him with some stoned out of their minds, half naked, Polish girls. Asked if they could stay over at his place just for the night and that she’d pay him well for it.

Well, he’d been out of his mind on powder that night and said that was and ended up having sex with the cuter one. The next morning Grace took them away and he got a fat stack of cash. It had seemed like a good deal at the time.

Until it started being _all the time_ that Grace was using his studio for her fucked up little side trade.

One night he’d been mostly sober when Grace and her boyfriend the detective came over with all of her thugs flexing their muscles and jeering at his paintings and putting out their cigarettes on his floor. And he knew there was another Lorry parked outside full of girls probably under 17 who knew nothing in English but ‘fuck me’ and ‘money’ and it hit him really hard in a moment of panic just how insane everything had become.

“Grace- can I talk to you?” he’d asked, hearing his own voice sounding like his throat was made of sandpaper. She looked at him like she’d never seen him before.

“Yeah- talk.”

His eyes flicked between Grace and to one of the muscular bearded guys who was jabbing his finger against one of his paintings and commenting to his friend in Polish.

“Oi! Don’t fucking touch!” he shouted his way, giving Grace an incredulous look, “Are you serious? Who the hell are these twats? You’ve got the Missing Link in your employ, Grace. Forget the whores- just sell these guys to a science lab- that’s where your money is, darling.”

Grace rolled his eyes at him. “What’s wrong with you today?”

John ran a hand through his hair, realising how shaky he was feeling. _Fuck being sober._

“I just- I need you to, like, find someplace else to do… this. Like, all this. I mean, except the drugs. But- all these Polish fuckwads and the girls- forget that.” He saw Grace’s gaze turn steely but kept talking nervously, the words flowing quickly now, “I mean it- I’m done.  Out. Who knows who could come calling round here anyday now and I can’t exactly flush three underage girls down the toilet with the drugs, can I?”

Grace shook her head, “You don’t have to worry about the roz, we’ve got a fucking detective as our business partner.” she said as if he was the stupidest person she’d ever had to speak to, pointing at the man whose name he’d never caught but who was looking damn menacing.

“Well, what if I want to do some portraits, right? Like, for someone _respectable_ with money.” as in someone who wouldn’t pay him in coke like most of his recent comissions had been paid in, “I can’t work in these conditions, Grace. Not with you showing up at the drop of the hat. You can’t just expect me to house all your crazy bullshit. I’m not having it anymore.” He shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest resolutely.

Grace looked at him with nothing but pity and then looked back at the detective and in a few short strides the detective closed the distance between them, grabbed him by the throat and shoved him down onto his couch. John sputtered, his hands weakly trying to claw at the other man whose grip held firm.

“Now listen up, you little prick.” The detective said calmly, almost reluctantly. Like he hated this part of his job but hell he was going to do it anyway. John struggled, digging his nails into the man’s wrists and he kicked out at him with as much force as he could muster.

“Could you stop that?” the detective asked politely. But suddenly the man choking him wasn’t his main concern because out of the corner of his eye he saw Grace advance upon him with a syringe in her hand.

It was a familiar feeling. One little prick and then everything went blurry and his muscles turned to jelly. Black spots invaded his vision until everything was black.

When John had opened his eyes again his head was throbbing. His first thought was that he’d been on a wild bender last night. Another one to **_not_** add to the memory book but now he’d just have to take a few advil and go back to bed. But he found he couldn’t move and as he blinked he took in with a growing sense of horror that he was in a goddamn meat locker. He tried to cry out (not sure what he’d say other than ‘what the fuck’) but there was duct tape over his mouth. The bright white fluorescent light was making his skull feel like it was going to split down the middle. And as he started to hyperventilate through his nose he could smell the raw meat hanging around him and it turned his stomach. He desperately tried to pull his hands free but they were tied behind him to a hook on the wall with bungee cords and duct tape- same with his ankles. At first he couldn’t imagine how he’d ended up in this situation but when Grace, the detective, and the Polish neanderthal walked into his line of vision it all came back.

He immediately tried with renewed energy to get free of the bondage on his hands and ankles or atleast try and crab walk away but the detective just sighed, looking at him with pity.

“Give him a kicking.” the detective said to the Polak, nodding his head in John’s direction. The hairy monster looked back at him in confusion.

The detective sighed, rolling his eyes in frustration. He articulated “HURT. HIM.” jabbing his pointer finger in John’s direction.

 Comprehension dawned on the big brute’s face which quickly broke into a grin as he threw his leg (which was about the diameter of a tree trunk) back and kicked John in the ribs. John’s scream of protest was muffled completely by the duct tape but he felt tears prick the corner of his eyes. The fucking Polish caveman looked gleefully up at the detective for approval who nodded once.

John curled as much as the bonds would allow into the fetal position as he got kicked several more times, feeling the tears start to flow down his face as he felt a rib shatter. He braced himself as the gorilla kicked him onto his side and stomped viciously on his hip bone.

“Oi- alright. That’s enough.” the detective’s voice.

John groaned loudly as he was pulled back into an upright position by the collar of his shirt- he felt like he’d been hit by a truck. Well, in a way that wasn’t far off…

The detective ripped the duct tape from his mouth.

“Alright, sweetheart?” the detective mocked, giving him a toothy grin.

John took two shaking breaths.

“No… I’m not bloody ‘ _alright_ ’, you fucking weasel! Let’s see how ‘alright’ you are, **_darling_** , when you’ve just had a brick shithouse from the neanderthal era use you as a football!” he shouted, tearing up his dry throat in the process. The detective back handed him so hard his head swung around and he felt an icy hot sting all across the side of his face.

“My god you’ve got a gob on ye.” the detective shook his head in disbelief. “Do you ever fucking shut up?” he looked back at Grace. “Are all artists like this?” She shrugged apathetically. “Un-fucking-believable.”

He returned his gaze to John whose defiance had a short lifespan, especially in the face of pain, as he was a coward by nature. He was trembling from fear and cold.

“Don’t talk for a while. Just listen.” he grabbed John by the hair, forcing him to look him in the eye. “You can’t just get out of this whenever you want to, alright? Didn’t it occur to you that you already know too much?”

It hadn’t occurred to him actually and a new wave of hopeless dread slowly curled in the pit of his stomach.

“You stupid cunt…You’re in the shit right next to us whether you like it or not, you understand me?” He gave John’s hair a hard pull.

“Yes! I get it! I get it, okay?!” he cried out.

“I don’t think he gets it.” the detective said. “Grace, do you think he gets it?”

“I don’t think he gets it.”

“Kamil, break his fingers.”

Fear surged through his body like a livewire and he writhed away as the lumbering thug reached round him but all it accomplished was making the tug of the detective’s grip in his hair excrutiating.

“Ach- Jesus! No- Oh, God, please don’t! I get it, alright?! Please no more-“ he heard his own voice high pitched and cracking as he felt the tight grip on his right forefinger before it was snapped back at the wrong angle drawing a powerful scream from him that shook his fractured ribs.

His scream turned into a broken sob and he wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball but couldn’t for the vice grip the detective was still holding his head back in.

“Jesus Christ… I’m not cut out for this…” he whimpered in a weak voice when he’d caught a few breaths, still feeling the throbbing from his hand, “I’m… I’m just a bloody artist…” he squeaked pathetically, his eyes welling up with fresh tears.

“Yeah. And I’m just a cop.” the detective chuckled humorlessly. “Which reminds me- if I get even the slighest inkling that you’re fucking us over, I’ll frame you up and have you behind bars so fast it’ll make your head spin.” he smiled good naturedly at him, “And I can’t really see you in prison- can you, John?”

John shook his head as fervently as he could in his position, tears tracking his cheeks at the mere prospect. He was too sensitive for jail. And jail meant no drugs besides. He thought he’d rather be dead.

“Though who knows- I’ve heard ‘artistic’ blokes like you are very popular in prison.”

John let out a choked sob.

“Break another finger” the detective instructed calmly.

He wailed unashamedly as the Polish man broke his middle finger with a loud cracking noise.

The detective clapped him on the shoulder.

“Now, are we feeling more cooperative, John?”

“I’ll do anything you want, I swear it” he gasped pathetically between sobs.

“That’s good to hear.” Grace said, stepping forward.

The detective let go of his hair and his chin dropped to his chest.

“Because we’ve got another problem.” she continued, “Heard you been fucking some of the merchandise.”

Grace calmly put her foot on his already broken ribs and pressed down until he felt the broken bones grinding together her stiletto heel threatened to split the skin.

“If you have sex with any more of those girls without paying, I’ll cut your dick off.”

He believed her.

“Alright! Alright!” he moaned through gritted teeth.

“And John,” she said, “Don’t worry about us getting in the way of your ‘work’. Your art’s all shit anyway.” She leaned forward, pressing her weight against him before taking her foot off.

“Kamil, knock him out.”

He didn’t have time to flinch before the Pole’s fat fist collided with his face and he blacked out.

He’d woken up on the floor of his studio feeling like absolute shit. He felt even worse when he managed to sit up and look around. All the paintings he’d done in the last year that had been lying around had been shredded and their tattered remains were strewn all across the studio. He fought back the new tears in his eyes and shakily got in his car to drive to the hospital.

After he got a cast on his fingers and come back he’d started attempting to clean up the mess they’d made for him, swiping at his leaking tears half heartedly as he did so. It only took him a few minutes into the job before he realized he couldn’t do it sober. He snorted a line and continued cleaning as he drank wine straight from the bottle, wincing every time he had to lean down with his broken ribs.

One of the problems with drugs is you start doing bad things on them and when you sober up even slightly and you start to realize just how monumentally you’ve fucked up your life, you have to do more drugs so you can forget again.

That’s what John had done. Gone on a total bender that lasted weeks. Hadn’t gotten laid a whole lot during that time because his torso was every shade of purple from bruising and he’d got a shiner on his eye from being knocked out but it didn’t matter since he was probably too drunk to get an erection anyway. Too drunk to do any work either so it didn’t matter that his fingers were broken. John had always found that being too drunk or too stoned was a sure fire way to let himself avoid doing things.

Grace continued bringing girls to his studio but it became more erratic- sometimes there were several months when he wouldn’t even see Grace or the detective. Then all of a sudden they’d show up again like he had nothing better to do than please them (he sort of didn’t).

Six months after he’d had the shit kicked out of him it didn’t bother him anymore. He’d replenished his studio with newly made artwork. Grace gave him plenty of money. He was content. He figured if they hadn’t all been caught yet then they probably wouldn’t get caught at all so there was nothing to make a fuss about. And it honestly didn’t get in the way of his livelihood so what the fuck did he care?

It was around that time that he met Natalie.

Natalie was young, and beautiful, and incredibly damaged. Just his type.

He’d started seeing her around at clubs. Sometimes she had a friend with her and other times she didn’t. The friend she’d been with was Eve. But Eve had barely been a blip on his radar at that time. She was nothing compared to Nat who could’ve easily been a fashion model and he told her as much frequently. He brought her back to his studio, they smoked grass and drank wine, he put his hand up her skirt and she let him.

Soon and much to his delight she became a regular at his studio. She usually wanted drugs in return for her company but he didn’t mind that. She was too gorgeous not to paint so he made her pose for him. Naked more often than not. He couldn’t remember a better subject he’d had. When he was painting Nat he felt like Vermeer or some asshole. And unlike some of his other models she had more than one brain cell in her pretty head. She was surprisingly good conversation- even if she liked drugs she could spend a whole night with him and still not be a complete mess in the morning. As a matter of fact he never saw her in the morning- she always woke up before he did and left without a goodbye. Natalie always somehow conjured enough money to pay for the drugs she got from him. He didn’t make her pay for anything they took together but whatever she took home he charged her for and she’d pay without a fuss- another reason he liked Nat. A good girl. Practical. No nonsense. Well he liked her for that **_and_** the way she looked when she was riding his cock. All the muscles in her slender form tensed and sheened in sweat and her blonde hair falling over her face… He’d thought to himself if he ever fell did fall in love with someone he hoped it was with a girl like Natalie.

He didn’t even mind when she started bringing Eve around too.

Eve wasn’t like Natalie. She was damaged to the point where she was kind of hard to deal with. Like the sort of girl who you’re constantly scared if you get her too drunk she’ll start crying and telling you about how her parents divorced when she was a kid. He couldn’t really figure her out. Sometimes she was a bar fly other times she gave everyone the cold shoulder. She’d be at Tony’s everynight until there was no one else there, then she’d sometimes up and leave without a word for weeks. Not that anyone noticed or gave a shit. She was like a figure in the background of a painting. She was there but she wasn’t the subject.

But it seemed that ultimately in the story of his life as fate would have it, Eve ended up being more important than he could’ve imagined to give her credit for.

Natalie started hanging out with a guy named Marco for some reason who John hated. Marco was a douchebag. Marco was a pot head, a moron, and worst of all a Philistine. John told her flat out that if she was going to bring Marco along she shouldn’t come by anymore. She’d shrugged at him and that had been it. She’d stopped coming around as often.

Eve should’ve stopped coming over when Natalie had but a few times she asked for drugs.  

“C’mon, John, don’t be such a stick in the mud.” she’d giggled at him, running her fingers down his chest. She was smashed already when she’d shown up. “I’ll pay you back. I promise. But I want something _now_ …”

He doubted she’d ever pay him back. _Not in cash atleast_ … Her heavy lidded eyes were smudged with dark eyeshadow as she looked up at him. She did have nice breasts… There was a metal wing resting in the valley of her cleavage, hanging from a light chain around her neck. He ran his thumb against it and she suddenly slapped his hand away.

“Oi- the fuck is wrong with you then?” he snapped at her.

“Sorry” she mumbled, taking a step back, “Just don’t touch my necklace, yeah?”

 _Bipolar bitch_ … he thought but let her put her hands back against his chest, rubbing her fingertips in circles against his nipples through the fabric of his shirt.

“C’mon, John… Please… I just want something to use as a pick-me-up later this week…” she brought her lips to his- kissing him languidly. She tasted like beer. He turned his head away from her.

“I’ll have money soon.” she said slowly.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“I mean it. I’m… doing some work… for Grace.” she giggled drunkenly, leaning in and whispering conspiratorily, “You know all about it.”

He frowned. She seemed like a fucking liability to him if there ever was one. Grace had always shown a sort of weird, motherly, affection for Eve that was uncharacteristic, he thought, of the ice queen bitch who’d nearly driven her stiletto through his torso.

“You’re in over your head, darling,” he said, shaking his head.

 _Hell, **I’M** in over my head_…

“I’ll be fine.” she assured him, rubbing her palm against the crotch of his pants, her fingers playing with his zipper. He gave in, pushing her down against the couch onto her back. Her eyes were already starting to flutter with sleepiness as he pulled his trousers down but he guided her hand over his length, pressing her fingers up and down him until he was stiff. He leaned forward into her palm, pulling her shirt down and opening his mouth over her breasts. She did have _great_ tits. Soft and bouncing with small nipples that hardened quickly under the ministrations of his tongue. She moaned weakly. John found  condom under the couch and tore open the package then slipped it on (he had no idea who she’d been fucking recently- probably Marco who probably had fucking herpes the nasty bastard) before pulling her skirt up to her stomach. Her underwear was cheap and tacky- neon purple lace. It almost turned him off. _Almost_. They tore a bit when he pushed them out of the way roughly to enter her. John set a rhythm of thrusting into her slowly and deliberately but he felt like he was doing all the work.

“Ohhh, John… You’re so big… Oh…” she whimpered half heartedly. Sounded like a bad actress in a low budget porno…

He jerked his hips faster, moving slickly now and grasping her ass for leverage. He wished he’d fucked her from behind instead- he didn’t like looking at her face. Her eyes were just rolling around and her mouth was open dumbly. She was sloshed as anything.

He came all the same and pulled out, not caring if she did too.

“mmn… so… I can have some of this, yeah?” she said, rolling over onto her side and making grabby hands at the bags of coke on the table.

“Whatever.” John sighed, pulling his trousers back up.

“Cool” she slurred, grabbing a bag and starting to put it in her purse before he slapped it out of her hands.

“Oi! Not the whole thing! You weren’t even that good!” he started to measured out a more appropriate amount for her to take.

“Do you have any weed?”

He was starting to lose patience with her but handed her a joint he’d rolled earlier. She lit it up and blew smoke rings into the air.

“I know… I seem like a sloppy drunk but… s’not my fault… me mum’s like this as well…” she said, sounding choked up suddenly. _Here we go_.

“Aren’t they always” he grumbled, handing her a smaller bag of powder, taking the joint from her hand, and pushing her gently off the couch towards the exit.

“I promise… I’ll have money soon…” she giggled, abruptly a happy drunk once more as she tripped out the door.

But she hadn’t ended up making enough money. Or maybe she had it but wasn’t willing to give it to him. She continued to come over and try to get drugs off him. She’d offer her body up to him but he wasn’t all that interested. “Just do me a favor and I’ll do a favor for you” she’d say but his patience ran thin when she took too many favors and he eventually told her to fuck off.

He hadn’t seen much of her until a week ago when she’d walked in with Grace and the detective.

“Oh, shit. It is the police.” he remarked in a deadpan voice, finishing snorting a line as the detective strolled into the room.

Grace was filling up two syringes.

“Sometimes this is more trouble than it’s worth, I swear.” she muttered to herself. She did look a bit haggard. Two young women were dragged into the room and pushed to the floor by John’s old friend Kamil (who still muttered “ _ciota_ ” at him under his breath whenever they accidentally met eyes).

“What- are our lady friends not enjoying their visit to the UK?” John drawled, walking over to them. The girls were gagged with their hands bound. _The dective’s type probably_ … he thought.

“Ello, lovelies.” John cooed at them as Grace pushed past him and thrust the needle into one girl’s arm. The other girl’s eyes went wide in fear and she jumped up, attempting to make a run for it before the detective caught her, shoving her back against the ground.

“I… I think I’m going to be sick…” he heard Eve’s voice and looked up at her for the first time since she’d walked in. She was pale as a sheet- she looked about as scared as the Polish girls.

“Well for God’s sake don’t do it on my floor, you dozy slag” he shouted in protest. She covered her mouth, looking around until she found his trash bin and then collapsing to her knees infront of it, vomiting loudly.

“Jesus…” he muttered in annoyance. The other girls, now heavily sedated were ushered into his back room by Kamil, leaving the three of them alone.

“I… I can’t do this…” Eve sobbed brokenly from the ground.

John sighed and gave Grace a look. He wanted to say ‘I told you so’.

Eve shakily turned around, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

“I… I want out… This is too much…” there were tears streaming openly down her face.

The detective and Grace exchanged significant looks. Grace’s mouth was set in a thin line. He’d never seen her look so pale. She kneeled down next to Eve, rubbing her back.

“It’s alright, love. You’re just in shock right now is all. Come back to the pub- you’ll feel better with a drink in ye.” she said comfortingly.

“No! I’m not in shock! I can’t do this anymore! I… I can’t.” she put her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

John looked at the detective and shrugged.

“Course you can, Eve.” the detective said calmly. “If you’re not up for it.”

 _Yeah, right_ … He’d learned the hard way there was no safe way out.

Grace gave an imploring look at the detective out of Eve’s line of sight and the cop shook his head almost imperceptibly at her. Resolve crossed her face and she patted Eve’s shoulder.

“Yeah. But… You’ll have to leave town then.”

“I don’t have any money” Eve moaned miserably.

“I can lend you some, you silly thing. Don’t you worry. Just come with me. You can leave tonight. Just… I want to show you something first. Come with me.” Grace helped the sniffling child to her feet (because that’s what she was, really- a child. And never more so than in that moment).

They’d walked out the door and he’d not seen Eve again.

Who he had seen was her father. And from there it had all gone pear shaped…

 _Oh. My life was just flashing before my eyes..._ John thought to himself, blinking. _How fucking cliché is that_ … He tasted his own bitter vomit on his tongue. _I don’t think it turned out quite like I’d planned_ …

He felt the nose of the gun press against the side of his forehead and felt a tear trickle down his cheek.


End file.
